Don't get me wrong, I completely agree some things should be set in stone with respect to audits and what have you, but let's consider the facts: a company that's under pressure from whomever enforces SOX but has quite a large volume of cash on hand will generally find a way to alter some logs were they keen on doing so. Even using some sort of feedback loop encryption/hashing method might be circumvented, albeit harder.
Smaller companies won't do it, but the big fish can probably bribe the right people when needed.
I don't want to reiterate all of my points - suffice to say, I believe Microsoft has more to gain by not needing to pimp out their enterprise version as often as their home version - cooler technologies to the users while keeping all the stuff businesses love separate. Would it cost more in development? I doubt it. It's not a matter of two different technologies, just two targeted platforms [just as we usually get with Linux, distros targeted at servers vs. servers etc]
Well people that have no clue about technology would think the ISP they're on isn't doing too well if they have so many maintenance e-mails coming in. A lot of times these customers would not even be affected - different subnet, services they do not use etc - but the psychological effect is the same. There's probably something going on every night.
A lot of the pressure about reaching your bandwidth cap is to push you to a higher plan that they can make more money on. This way they are actually close to false advertising, if they bug you about your usage way before you're even close to your limit.
My Canadian ISP [Telus] tells me I have 30 GBs per month; I am frequently doing 5 times that and I haven't received so much as an e-mail. I care more about this than total speed. By comparison, Shaw gives up 100 GBs but will call you up as soon as you go 5 GBs over the limit. The second time around you get your service suspended but you can get it back if you upgrade. So I'm happier to go slower but get more - plus my tech support encounters have been better with these guys.
I'd care more to not have the pleasure of using somebody like Rogers as they have decided to throttle/block all encrypted traffic in an attempt to screw with encrypted torrent traffic. Because privacy became a crime, I guess...
Google or GNU/Linux or me.
The idea is that in any given marketplace a company in the position of Microsoft will always exist. If they are 'evil' or not is largely decided by shareholders and market trends. I do believe that somebody could have the leverage that MS does and not use it to screw over their customers. It generally doesn't pay as well, though.
You can easily by media without levies in Canada. Don't go to futureshop, bestbuy or london drugs. It is ridiculous but once I bought a 50 pack of DVDs that were cheaper than what the next person bought, a 50 pack of CDs [it seems they only worry about burning music.]
As a direct result of this report, MS and IKEA signed a contract for replacing all seating devices in the Redmond headquarters with imovable ones [bolted to the floor.]
This will reduce one of the main yearly business expenses that MicroSoft needs to cover.
Being dumb and being uneducated are somewhat different things. Intelligence is a measure of being able to adapt and understand situations 'on the fly' [well, this would be one limited definition, of course].
He was the most apt man in Sicilia to run the world's most notorious criminal organization. I think we should give him some credit in regards to his intelligence.
Of course, if he read Schneier he might have been better at what he did [in terms of crypto]. Even pen-and-paper ciphers have advanced but not being able to read properly has certainly had an influence on it all.
Actually "Open" source is more along the lines of the standards approach rather than the FSF one. OSS != FSS as many activists on either side will tell you.
Opening the source allows people to expand on it. The Open hardware model lets you do the same, because OSes and drivers are, in a way, an extension on hardware much like plugins extend software functionality. By having more development focus around a certain hardware platform more demand can possibly arise. So SUN and IBM can make more money out of 'outsourcing' the software development to the community while still keeping the rights to manufacture the chips.
On the community's side this is a gain because they are now able to add any feature and functionality they want [well, within specs] and have better support for these chips in various OSes.
It is worthwhile to acknowledge a few things here:
1. Microsoft was _not_ forced to do this. Their action is one that is beneficial mainly to them by putting the burden of working around this issue on the end developers. Faster and cheaper. It makes perfect sense as a business practise.
2. There are good things coming out of this, such as ActiveX being done away with and Microsoft not putting up to crap. Beyond zealotry and personal preferences, we need to try and keep an objective outlook on things [is this the wrong crowd for that!] The fact that MS chose this route is indicative of some kind of an acknowledgement that they were mistaken with ActiveX.
They should have pitched their patent before suing. Who's going to do business with someone they lost a trial to?
What I meant is, on the "Get Info" window there is an option for volume boost. I'm wondering whether the limiter will still be able to limit the sound output if, for example, some kid sets all of its songs to full boost.
If the limiter cannot do it than I guess it is a way to possibly circumvent that protection. Just a thought.
You can also manually increase the volume of a track [or an entire album or more]
That seems to be the way to still be able to have louder tracks. Unless the update tries to calculate RMS on-the-fly, which would drain the battery life in a ridiculous amount of time [and just plain suck.]
Yes, it seems that more and more people want others to take care of them. It makes you wonder if democracy [and power to the masses] really is the best idea ever when so many people seem to be unfit to govern their own lives, let alone have a say in what everyone's life should look like.
I find it hard to believe Google will choose to scram and rewrite their entire Maps and Earth applications and everything else they have because of this. Most likely they will leave it as it is and if legal threats against all browsers are suspected they might decide to recode then. Or maybe they'll slowly start now and keep at it.
I have to side with MS and W3C on this. IF W3C is right and there is prior art for this it would be a good case for future allegations of patent infringements that can have prior art demonstrated. It will also allow the USPTO to show that they can review and follow procedure on revoking patents that have prior art demonstrated.
Yes, Linux is a kernel, but even a Windows default install comes with a little bit more than just that.
The way I would see this as being fair is if an absolute minimum install was done on Linux - stage1 through stage3 of Gentoo and only that, or a Deb basic, or Slack or what have you - and then compare. On a fairly similar amount of programs.
If you throw in KDE you're moving beyond just GNU/Linux, because that's an auxiliary piece of software. Comparatively, it's like running one of those modification shells for Windows. 4 GBs of software on a Fedora Core install doesn't mean twice as many programs as a default XP install; it means twenty times more, at least.
The survey does, probably, succeed with those managers of IT departments that do not understand these issues nor do they care; but they will stick to Windows after seeing these numbers - and that's all that Redmond really cares about, isn't it?
As for the one poster that doubted whether bugs can be found while looking at source code... just today I identified two issues at work by working alongside the source code in devising the 'exploit'. This is called whitebox testing and it's very important in 'the industry' as I'm sure that respective poster [first page I think?] would know...
Well there's been some interchanging of "free" and "open" throughout the comment sections which I'm not sure is warranted since there's two different philosophies at work here in terms of software. But for all points and purposes I suppose I'll try and tackle both.
Yes, GNU isn't interested in developing things which are not [or rather, cannot be] free from the ground up. That's why they don't endorse OpenOffice 2.0 or the Sun JDK [the former due to great use of the latter]. Sure, there was compromise at the beginning, what with having to develop GCC on some other compiler that wasn't free [if memory serves me right from "Revolution OS"], but the groundwork has been laid out and so there's nothing stopping the 'proper' development of free software now.
But the perceived issue here is in regards to the politics of open source and the lack of understanding of those mentalities when it comes to Windows users. Indeed, it's hard to change that mindset overnight; as a University student [and a CS major to add to that] I'm faced with enough "pay me for my work" peers that cannot even begin to understand the point of doing something for free [they believe no one will donate a penny given the choice]. There's also the ones that use Linux due to financial constraints but have no other affinity to the OS or the mentality.
I consider that neither of these groups can truly understand the nature of free and/or open source. While the world is happy enough with just one Richard Stallman, it cannot be denied that Linux is a movement that has more than just technological implications. Sure, it isn't communist [as it has been sometimes thrown around] but maybe some "technological marxism" [economically speaking] can be traced to it, and surely it bothers a lot of people.
Okay, kinda went off-topic there, apologies.
Windows OSS isn't a movement per-se. It's sprung as a by-product of the Linux/BSD OSS movements and lacks the drive or 'notoriety' characteristic to these. There's rarely any understanding of the core mentalities in most [read: average] Windows users and they'll look at anything free with incredulity at best and suspicion at worst.
The non-Windows community doesn't disregard WinOSS based solely on the non-free stack upon which it tries to function: yes, I think it is generally a matter of portability rather than anything else. Most OSS devs work in free environments because it feels more 'at home' to do so; and non-portable code does not interest them since they cannot benefit it.
The stack principle is valid in terms of free software; the mentioning of it here, when it comes to Open software, seems an indication of the lack of depth given to clearly understanding the difference between the two issues... wonder why you'd get shot down sometimes:)
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Don't get me wrong, I completely agree some things should be set in stone with respect to audits and what have you, but let's consider the facts: a company that's under pressure from whomever enforces SOX but has quite a large volume of cash on hand will generally find a way to alter some logs were they keen on doing so. Even using some sort of feedback loop encryption/hashing method might be circumvented, albeit harder.
Smaller companies won't do it, but the big fish can probably bribe the right people when needed.
What do you expect, when one with an undocumented number of security flaws is marked for real-life use?
But an interesting competition. Puts responsibility back in the way people write their code, not license it and hide behind the legalese.
I envisioned this a while back [in March], right about when Vista made some of the first news.
http://hackd.net/2007/03/22/split-personality/
I don't want to reiterate all of my points - suffice to say, I believe Microsoft has more to gain by not needing to pimp out their enterprise version as often as their home version - cooler technologies to the users while keeping all the stuff businesses love separate. Would it cost more in development? I doubt it. It's not a matter of two different technologies, just two targeted platforms [just as we usually get with Linux, distros targeted at servers vs. servers etc]
Well people that have no clue about technology would think the ISP they're on isn't doing too well if they have so many maintenance e-mails coming in. A lot of times these customers would not even be affected - different subnet, services they do not use etc - but the psychological effect is the same. There's probably something going on every night.
A lot of the pressure about reaching your bandwidth cap is to push you to a higher plan that they can make more money on. This way they are actually close to false advertising, if they bug you about your usage way before you're even close to your limit.
My Canadian ISP [Telus] tells me I have 30 GBs per month; I am frequently doing 5 times that and I haven't received so much as an e-mail. I care more about this than total speed. By comparison, Shaw gives up 100 GBs but will call you up as soon as you go 5 GBs over the limit. The second time around you get your service suspended but you can get it back if you upgrade. So I'm happier to go slower but get more - plus my tech support encounters have been better with these guys.
I'd care more to not have the pleasure of using somebody like Rogers as they have decided to throttle/block all encrypted traffic in an attempt to screw with encrypted torrent traffic. Because privacy became a crime, I guess...
Google or GNU/Linux or me. The idea is that in any given marketplace a company in the position of Microsoft will always exist. If they are 'evil' or not is largely decided by shareholders and market trends. I do believe that somebody could have the leverage that MS does and not use it to screw over their customers. It generally doesn't pay as well, though.
You can easily by media without levies in Canada. Don't go to futureshop, bestbuy or london drugs. It is ridiculous but once I bought a 50 pack of DVDs that were cheaper than what the next person bought, a 50 pack of CDs [it seems they only worry about burning music.]
As a direct result of this report, MS and IKEA signed a contract for replacing all seating devices in the Redmond headquarters with imovable ones [bolted to the floor.]
This will reduce one of the main yearly business expenses that MicroSoft needs to cover.
Being dumb and being uneducated are somewhat different things. Intelligence is a measure of being able to adapt and understand situations 'on the fly' [well, this would be one limited definition, of course].
He was the most apt man in Sicilia to run the world's most notorious criminal organization. I think we should give him some credit in regards to his intelligence.
Of course, if he read Schneier he might have been better at what he did [in terms of crypto]. Even pen-and-paper ciphers have advanced but not being able to read properly has certainly had an influence on it all.
Actually "Open" source is more along the lines of the standards approach rather than the FSF one. OSS != FSS as many activists on either side will tell you.
Opening the source allows people to expand on it. The Open hardware model lets you do the same, because OSes and drivers are, in a way, an extension on hardware much like plugins extend software functionality. By having more development focus around a certain hardware platform more demand can possibly arise. So SUN and IBM can make more money out of 'outsourcing' the software development to the community while still keeping the rights to manufacture the chips.
On the community's side this is a gain because they are now able to add any feature and functionality they want [well, within specs] and have better support for these chips in various OSes.
It is worthwhile to acknowledge a few things here:
1. Microsoft was _not_ forced to do this. Their action is one that is beneficial mainly to them by putting the burden of working around this issue on the end developers. Faster and cheaper. It makes perfect sense as a business practise.
2. There are good things coming out of this, such as ActiveX being done away with and Microsoft not putting up to crap. Beyond zealotry and personal preferences, we need to try and keep an objective outlook on things [is this the wrong crowd for that!] The fact that MS chose this route is indicative of some kind of an acknowledgement that they were mistaken with ActiveX.
They should have pitched their patent before suing. Who's going to do business with someone they lost a trial to?
What I meant is, on the "Get Info" window there is an option for volume boost. I'm wondering whether the limiter will still be able to limit the sound output if, for example, some kid sets all of its songs to full boost.
If the limiter cannot do it than I guess it is a way to possibly circumvent that protection. Just a thought.
You can also manually increase the volume of a track [or an entire album or more]
That seems to be the way to still be able to have louder tracks. Unless the update tries to calculate RMS on-the-fly, which would drain the battery life in a ridiculous amount of time [and just plain suck.]
Yes, it seems that more and more people want others to take care of them. It makes you wonder if democracy [and power to the masses] really is the best idea ever when so many people seem to be unfit to govern their own lives, let alone have a say in what everyone's life should look like.
I find it hard to believe Google will choose to scram and rewrite their entire Maps and Earth applications and everything else they have because of this. Most likely they will leave it as it is and if legal threats against all browsers are suspected they might decide to recode then. Or maybe they'll slowly start now and keep at it.
I have to side with MS and W3C on this. IF W3C is right and there is prior art for this it would be a good case for future allegations of patent infringements that can have prior art demonstrated. It will also allow the USPTO to show that they can review and follow procedure on revoking patents that have prior art demonstrated.
Yes, Linux is a kernel, but even a Windows default install comes with a little bit more than just that.
The way I would see this as being fair is if an absolute minimum install was done on Linux - stage1 through stage3 of Gentoo and only that, or a Deb basic, or Slack or what have you - and then compare. On a fairly similar amount of programs.
If you throw in KDE you're moving beyond just GNU/Linux, because that's an auxiliary piece of software. Comparatively, it's like running one of those modification shells for Windows. 4 GBs of software on a Fedora Core install doesn't mean twice as many programs as a default XP install; it means twenty times more, at least.
The survey does, probably, succeed with those managers of IT departments that do not understand these issues nor do they care; but they will stick to Windows after seeing these numbers - and that's all that Redmond really cares about, isn't it?
As for the one poster that doubted whether bugs can be found while looking at source code... just today I identified two issues at work by working alongside the source code in devising the 'exploit'. This is called whitebox testing and it's very important in 'the industry' as I'm sure that respective poster [first page I think?] would know...
</sarcasm>
Well there's been some interchanging of "free" and "open" throughout the comment sections which I'm not sure is warranted since there's two different philosophies at work here in terms of software. But for all points and purposes I suppose I'll try and tackle both.
:)
Yes, GNU isn't interested in developing things which are not [or rather, cannot be] free from the ground up. That's why they don't endorse OpenOffice 2.0 or the Sun JDK [the former due to great use of the latter]. Sure, there was compromise at the beginning, what with having to develop GCC on some other compiler that wasn't free [if memory serves me right from "Revolution OS"], but the groundwork has been laid out and so there's nothing stopping the 'proper' development of free software now.
But the perceived issue here is in regards to the politics of open source and the lack of understanding of those mentalities when it comes to Windows users. Indeed, it's hard to change that mindset overnight; as a University student [and a CS major to add to that] I'm faced with enough "pay me for my work" peers that cannot even begin to understand the point of doing something for free [they believe no one will donate a penny given the choice]. There's also the ones that use Linux due to financial constraints but have no other affinity to the OS or the mentality.
I consider that neither of these groups can truly understand the nature of free and/or open source. While the world is happy enough with just one Richard Stallman, it cannot be denied that Linux is a movement that has more than just technological implications. Sure, it isn't communist [as it has been sometimes thrown around] but maybe some "technological marxism" [economically speaking] can be traced to it, and surely it bothers a lot of people.
Okay, kinda went off-topic there, apologies.
Windows OSS isn't a movement per-se. It's sprung as a by-product of the Linux/BSD OSS movements and lacks the drive or 'notoriety' characteristic to these. There's rarely any understanding of the core mentalities in most [read: average] Windows users and they'll look at anything free with incredulity at best and suspicion at worst.
The non-Windows community doesn't disregard WinOSS based solely on the non-free stack upon which it tries to function: yes, I think it is generally a matter of portability rather than anything else. Most OSS devs work in free environments because it feels more 'at home' to do so; and non-portable code does not interest them since they cannot benefit it.
The stack principle is valid in terms of free software; the mentioning of it here, when it comes to Open software, seems an indication of the lack of depth given to clearly understanding the difference between the two issues... wonder why you'd get shot down sometimes
Cheers!